Before Stalinism: The Defence Industry of Soviet Russia in the 1920s

Competition and profit-seeking were never strong features of the Russian defence industry before the Revolution. World War I and the Russian Civil War profoundly influenced interwar perspectives on the Soviet defence industry and accentuated this characteristic in the process. The defence industry failed to adapt to market conditions under the New Economic Policy: it produced at a loss, depended heavily on budgetary subsidies, and still failed to meet the demands of the armed forces in virtually every field of armament. The blame, at first laid on those in charge of the defence industry, was directed more and more specifically against its ‘bourgeois’ specialists. In the process, the Red Army staff became enthusiastic advocates of forced industrialisation under a command system through which they hoped to gain direct influence over defence industry personnel and allocations.